Until the Eiffel tower was built in 1887, tallest structure ever built

Sides align almost exactly with the four points of the compass

"By the Fourth Dynasty, the pharaohs considered themselves the sons of Re and his incarnation on earth. For the pharaohs, it would have been only a small step from their belief that the spirit and power of Re resided in the pyramidal ben-ben to the belief that their divine spirits and bodies would be similarly preserved within pyramidal tombs.” – Gardner's Art Through the Ages

Estimate about 20 to 100,000 people (not slaves) built the great pyramids

Worked 3 months a year for 20 years

Understood the work to be of honor

Modern Egyptian standing on pyramid building blocks

Plan of necropolis at Gizeh

"The elaborate explanations [for the sphinx] are totally unnecessary. The falcon was identified with Horus, while the lion was identified with the sun, and thus with the sun-god, Ra, and Ra's divine colleague Amun. To have a statue, half-lion, half-falcon, guarding the place where your soul would exist eternally, was to claim the protection of Egypt's most powerful gods. To put your own face on the statue was to claim their identity. The name "sphinx" is a Greek corruption; the original Egyptian name for the figure was probably 'shesepankh,' or 'living image.'" - Susan Wise Bauer

Divine conception of Hatshepsut. Amun-Re impregnates Queen Ahmose through his breath.
Hatshepsut had these glyphs carved both at her own mortuary temple, and the Temple of Amun.
Upon her death, Hatshepsut's nephew, Thutmosis II, and later, Akhenaten thoroughly damaged the carvings.